La Brega

For over a century, Puerto Rican musicians have been influential across the hemisphere. From the Harlem Hellfighters of WWI who helped develop jazz to the reggaetoneros who dominate today’s charts, Puerto Rican music is everywhere. We start the season with the island’s most celebrated composer Rafael Hernandez, who wrote beloved songs like “Lamento Borincano,” “Ahora Seremos Felices,” and “Perfume de Gardenias” – and one of the island’s unofficial anthems, “Preciosa.” It’s a love song written for Puerto Rico that praises the island’s beauty and, remarkably, also calls out the forces that oppress it.

When Bad Bunny exploded onto the scene and became the most-streamed artist in the history of the world, it became undeniable that Puerto Rican lyrics – the poetry of what people sing about, the bregas in every chorus – resonate all over the hemisphere. In September, he put out a music video for his hit “El Apagón,” (“The Blackout,”) which then turned into a mini-documentary about gentrification – the way people from the states are taking advantage of tax benefits and displacing Boricuas. It’s called “Aqui Vive Gente" ("People Live Here").

“El Apagón,” has become somewhat of an anthem – an installment in the long tradition of Puerto Ricans singing about home, longing and belonging, popularized by Rafael Hernandez. But Bad Bunny isn’t singing about yearning for Puerto Rico – his music is often about never even leaving in the first place. It’s about staying, and creating a future for Puerto Ricans in Puerto Rico. If the video’s Youtube comments – declarations of solidarity – are any indication, his music has touched on something deeply relatable across Latin America.

Learn more about the voices in this episode:

• Myzo, the singer from the plane

• Bobby Sanabria, Grammy-nominated bandleader and educator

• Elena Martínez, folklorist at City Lore and the Bronx Music Heritage Center

• Watch Marc Anthony’s performance of “Preciosa”

• Watch Bianca Graulau’s documentary “Aquí Vive Gente” (“People Live Here”)

Our cover of “Preciosa” is by the artist Xenia Rubinos (out in April).

Listen to our Spotify playlist, featuring music from this episode – and this season. We’ll keep adding to it each week as new episodes come out.

Special thanks to Yarimar Bonilla, Tracie Hunte, Lidia Hernandez, Diego Lanao, Marissé Masís Solano, Pedro Andrade, María Luz Nóchez and Ana Reyes. Fact checking this season is by Istra Pacheco and María Soledad Dávila Calero.

This season of La Brega is made possible by the Mellon Foundation.

At the end of the 1990s merengue ruled supreme on the radio and television in Puerto Rico. Elvis Crespo’s “Suavemente” is perhaps the most famous example — a bonafide hit that helped popularize the genre all over the world.

But how did this Puerto Rican hit become the most recognizable merengue song in a genre pioneered by Dominican musicians?

The road to merengue’s ubiquity in Puerto Rico was a long and complicated one. It coincides with the rise of Dominican migration to Puerto Rico and involves a cultural battle fought in nightclubs, “fiestas patronales,” and high school proms around the archipelago. Tensions around immigration and race that developed during that time remain today. Reporter Ezequiel Rodríguez Andino tells the story of merengue’s rise in Puerto Rico, the ripple effects of this “musical war,” and what it all tells us about the relationship between Puerto Rico and the people from its sister-island: the Dominican Republic.

Learn more about the voices in this episode:

• Alberto “Ringo” Martinez, director and co-founder of Patrulla 15

• Richie Viera, producer and owner of Viera Discos

• Edgar Nevarez, trumpet player and arranger

• Andres "Velcro" Ramos, DJ, producer, and MC

• Watch Glorimarie Peña Alicea’s presentation “Yolas, memorias y transgresiones: La mujer y la migración indocumentada dominicana a Puerto Rico”

Our cover of “No Tienes Corazón” by Patrulla 15 is by the artists DJ Velcro and Mireya Ramos (out this April).

Listen to our Spotify playlist, featuring music from this episode – and this season. We’ll keep adding to it each week as new episodes come out.

Special thanks this week to Marisol Andino, Miguel Angel Rodriguez, Andy Lanset, Chiquita Brujita, Lia Camille Crockett, Amanda Alcántara, Fernanda Echávarri, Emanuel Dufrasne, Elmer Gonzalez, Francisco Perez, Andres “Cucho” Perez Camacho, Tatiana Díaz Ramos, Sujei Lugo Vazquez and Otoniel Nicolas. Additional music in this episode from Yasser Tejeda. Fact checking this season is by Istra Pacheco and María Soledad Dávila Calero.

This season of La Brega is made possible by the Mellon Foundation.

Las hermosas playas de Puerto Rico son una parte integral de la vida puertorriqueña. Las costas forman un anillo de placer que rodea toda la isla, una válvula de escape. Y son uno de los pocos espacios que son verdaderamente públicos. Al menos, eso es lo que dice la ley. En la práctica, sin embargo, esa franja de tierra donde el agua se encuentra con la orilla es la zona más disputada de todo Puerto Rico. Y está desapareciendo rápidamente debido al desarrollo y la erosión costera.

En "Olas y arenas", Sylvia Rexach desempeña el papel de la arena: ella le canta con nostalgia al flujo y el reflujo del mar, anhelando por las olas que nunca llegan a tocarla. Este bolero clásico es una canción de amor no correspondido, y nuestro último episodio de la temporada tiene lugar en esa misma eterna marea. Exploramos el tira y afloje entre los residentes de toda la vida y los desarrolladores inmobiliarios, en medio de la costa que cambia rápidamente, la marea creciente y una ley escrita que se esquiva.

Aprende más sobre las voces de este episodio:

• Mariana Nogales Molinelli, representante por acumulación electa en la Cámara de Representantes de Puerto Rico

• iLe, cantante y compositora

• Verónica González Rodríguez, abogada ambiental y profesora en la Universidad Interamericana de Puerto Rico

• Paco Diaz-Fournier, cofundador de Luxury Collection

• La banda Los Rivera Destino proporcionó música original y adaptó musicalmente la definición de zona marítimo terrestre

Nuestra versión de "Olas y arenas" es de Balún (saldrá en abril).

Escucha nuestra lista de reproducción de Spotify, con música de este episodio y de esta temporada.

Un agradecimiento especial esta semana a David Rodríguez Andino, Ismael Cancel, Yarimar Bonilla, Tracie Hunte, Deepak Lamba Nieves y Aurelio Mercado. El chequeo de datos y la verificación de los hechos de esta temporada fue realizado por Istra Pacheco y Maria Soledad.

Esta temporada de La Brega es posible gracias a la Mellon Foundation.

Puerto Rico’s relationship with the United States has long been a subject of intense debate. In 1952, Puerto Rico adopted a new status that was meant to decolonize the island. In English, we call it a “Commonwealth.” In Spanish, it’s called “Estado Libre Asociado”, or ELA. Puerto Ricans were promised for decades that this unique status meant they had a special kind of sovereignty while maintaining ties to the US. Now, a series of recent crises on the island have led many to question that promise, and to use the word “colony” more and more. In this episode, political anthropologist and El Nuevo Día columnist Yarimar Bonilla looks for those who still believe in the ELA, and asks what happens when a political project dies.

You can get more resources for related issues at the Puerto Rico Syllabus website.

Created on the streets by young Nuyoricans in the mid-1980s, freestyle music became the soundtrack for the lives of second-generation Puerto Ricans. Hip-hop and pop, Latin Caribbean rhythms and instruments — it all came together in freestyle. The sound was ubiquitous in New York, and later in Orlando, Florida, where many of these Boricuas were charting new ground and new lives across the diaspora.

Artists, many of whom were young Puerto Rican women, ultimately became the face of the genre; and for the listeners that so resembled them, the music provided an opportunity to dance to the beat of someone who looked and sounded like them. Young freestyle artists sang about love, heartbreak, and their sexual desires. In Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam’s “I Wonder If I Take You Home” — one of the genre’s biggest hits — a young woman sings about her sexual desire, on her own terms and without shame.

As a Boricua born in the '90s, reporter Raquel Reichard didn’t experience the freestyle explosion in real time, but she’s felt its profound ripple effects. In this episode, we meet two mother-daughter duos — including Raquel and her mother — for whom “I Wonder if I Take You Home” is particularly special. The song opened intergenerational conversations around sexuality, respectability and empowerment, and while impacting their lives both personally and professionally, it also strengthened their relationships with each other.

Learn more about the voices in this episode:

• Stacey DiLiberto, lecturer at the University of Central Florida

• Louie Ortiz-Fonseca, freestyle historian and former freestyle artist

• Nic Lopez Rodriguez, DJ and performance studies scholar

• Stephanie Loraine Piñeiro, Executive Director of Florida Access Network

• Read Raquel Reichard’s reporting on the history of birth control trials.

• Watch the documentary "La Operación,” about the sterilization of Puerto Rican women during the 1950s and 60s.

Our cover of “I Wonder If I Take You Home” is by the artist RaiNao, featuring IFE (out this April).

Listen to our Spotify playlist, featuring music from this episode — and this season. We’ll keep adding to it each week as new episodes come out.

Special thanks this week to Zoe Colón, Angel Vendrell, Jackie and Emily Diaz, Richie Rosario, Cynthia Torres, DJ Dominick, and Maritza and Lizardo Reichard. Fact checking this season is by Istra Pacheco and María Soledad Dávila Calero.

This season of La Brega is made possible by the Mellon Foundation.